PajamaMan...

Saturday, May 12

If we've heard in the past of many entrepreneurs who advocate pajama working by organizing seminars throughout the nation, only recently have these actual pajama workers or pajamapreneurs been featured in the mainstream media, initiated by the following article by one of the Malaysia's premier english-language newspapers - New Straits Times. If you're a reader of traditional newspapers, both online and offline, most likely you've stumbled on ads by Fione Tan's eOneNet and Dr Irfan Khairi's or even Shaun Tan's (aka. Sen Ze) who famously came up with the tagline "Make US Dollars in Your Pajamas". Although each of these personalities claimed to have been or are still making a great deal of income through the Internet, we must have realized that they are now making even more money by being an SME (vs. being a one-man show, working from bedrooms/own home), hiring many staff, complete with at least one lavish office and advertising heavily in mainstream media -- TV, radio, newspapers and magazines.

Not popularly known however, except by the growing community of bloggers and internet suffers/marketers for at least two years already, are the many hundreds of individuals who are actually making a decent life-supporting income or even a small wealth each month working literally in their pajamas (or shorts/kain pelekat/batik) at home or anywhere the Internet is accessible. How much money are we talking about? Is RM2,000/month enough to make you quit your day job? (This is VERY POSSIBLE BTW, but in some cases, you'd have to wait six months or longer to collect a monthly income of this size -- so, keep your day job when you're about to start your first Internet-based business). How about RM5,000 or even RM50K per month, for a full year or longer? Wouldn't that make you a pajama-working self-made millionaire in two years or less?

Forget auto-surf, and forget high-yield investment programs that presented more risks than benefits. There are many legitimate business/work than can be done by Internet-accessible workers, and some are even simpler and better than joining and promoting products thru an MLM system.

Perhaps to be politically correct, the following NST article features three home-working micropreneurs representing three major races in Malaysia - Malay, Chinese and Indian - SZAB, LiewCF and Gobala, each of whom operates quite a varied business activities, namely, "directory systems", "a dedicated publication on ICT and gadgets", and "an internet marketing blog as well as many sites selling infopreneur ebooks/products".

There are many others, for instance the eBay Taiko, the eLance Superworker, the Domain Web Lords, the Million-Pixel Millionaire, the World Traveller, and perhaps the mainstream media will soon catch an eye on them. (Psst: Author of this Pajamanation Malaysia blog is another net-centric pajamaworker, since 1992, but he's not ready to reveal his full resume. Though, there's this little devil called Google, you know!). Over the past many years, Pajamanation Malaysia has been following this trend of Generation C finally starting to invade Malaysia and many are shouting, "Show Us The Money!".

With success stories like this spreading like fireflies, Pajamanation Malaysia has projected that the number of pajamaworkers and micropreneurs in Malaysia to grow fast to exceed 100,000 (that's only 20% of existing active business entities in Malaysia) in two years time, and to surpass ONE MILLION net-centric workers by 2012. The question is, are the government and the local SMEs & corporations ready for this rise of the knowledge-centric amateurs? And, will the broadband and telco providers in Malaysia ever keep up?

(Note that there are 40 million home-based workers/businesses in the USA alone today, another 10 million plus in Europe and in China, India and Pakistan: prepare to be shocked soon!).

Read on the following newspaper article to learn more...

Samsul Zamzuri Abu Bakar, who works up to 12 hours a day on his laptop, has a monthly five-figure salary.

by Chow Kum Hor, 11 MAY 2007

KUALA LUMPUR: Fed up with day jobs and measly pay, a small but rising number of people have become full-time Internet entrepreneurs, some raking in five-figure salaries, often in the comfort of their living rooms.

A popular Internet income generator is through the sale of advertisement space in websites and blogs. Others sell anything from e-books to software, either authored themselves, or through an affiliate programme.

There are no statistics on the number of Malaysians who have gone full-time into online money-making ventures, although anecdotal evidence suggests more are doing so.

However, before Malaysians start jumping on the Internet income bandwagon, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has a word of caution: Beware of online scams.

"Surfers should not fall for get-rich-quick scams that are aplenty online. MCMC continuously monitors and acts on them," said a spokesman from the regulatory body from the communications and multimedia industry.But for those who have struck gold online, the returns are generous, not only in terms of pay.

Most work from home, which means they do not have bosses breathing down their necks, don’t have to get stuck in traffic jams and can spend more time with their families.

Liew Cheon Fong, who runs a technology blog (www.liewcf.com), claimed he was the first Malaysian to go into blogging full-time in 2005 in what started out as a hobby to share computing tips with friends.

The Kluang-based 27-year-old computer science degree-holder posts a few entries in his blog daily. He needs to keep his entries interesting to attract web traffic, failing which his income could dip.

One of his sources of income is Google Adsense, an online advertisement programme run by Internet giant Google. Liew gets paid whenever visitors click on advertisements placed on his blog.

Website operators who sign up with Google Adsense display advertisements related to their websites. For example, a blog on pets may feature ads on dog shampoo or pet grooming services.

Often, revenue generated online is in US dollars and credited into e-commerce facilities like PayPal. While Malaysians cannot withdraw money from PayPal accounts, many use them to make online purchases instead.

Unless you earn a monthly five-figure salary like Samsul Zamzuri Abu Bakar, 32, a Sungai Buloh-based Netpreneur (see accompanying story). He has opened an account with a United States bank which allows him to withdraw earnings credited into PayPal.

Then using his ATM card, he withdraws his money here.

But Samsul, who co-runs several blogs on gadgets like handphones and digital cameras, said many people have the misconception that entrepreneurs making money over the Internet involve "just working a few hours a day and spending the rest of the time watching their money roll in".

Samsul spends up to 12 hours in front of a computer, either liaising with his co-bloggers, marketing his blogs or simply surfing the Internet for ideas or to keep abreast with the latest developments in technology.

There are also drawbacks when your sole income is derived from such unconventional means. A common complaint is erratic income.

In Samsul’s case, revenue peaks during the Christmas and the US summer seasons when sales of technology items go up, while for the rest of the year, earnings can be slow.

Last June, Liew’s income was badly hit when Google dropped his blog’s ranking, resulting in a drastic reduction in the number of visitors to the site. Liew has since recovered after Google upgraded his ranking. Now, almost a quarter of a million visitors go to his blog per month.

Gobala Krishnan, 27, who sells e-books and software online, said it was more important to plan ahead and follow it through. Otherwise, his earnings would be affected in the long-run. He claimed to be making RM20,000 to RM30,000 per month.

How does one identify online cheats, especially since some of the operators are based overseas?

Krishnan offered his rule-of-thumb: "If it’s too good to be true, it’s probably a scam. Just like any business, Internet business takes capital, time and dedication."